DC Senior VP Sales, Bob Wayne, was in his home turf yesterday. as DC Comics took a road trip to Dallas to talk to retailers about the upcoming relaunch. Dennis Ray of Three D’s Comics in Arlington, Texas attended and gave us the low down.

At the show, DC told retailers that they have a seven figure marketing budget to spend on the Relaunch, which includes everything from the previously Bleeding Cooled TV ad campaign, including the Cartoon Network ads to USA Today, Facebook, movie theaters ads, conventions and promotional materials. The target audience are men age 18 to 34 though they do realize that they have readers in other demographics.

As to other creators, James Robinson is already working on a new comic project with several issues written, Amanda Conner has a project in the works as does the previously mentioned Nicola Scott. Phil Jimenez and Scott Kolins are also still working for DC.

You won’t be seeing Donna Troy yet in the new DCU, nor the Stephanie and Cassandra Batgirls. They haven’t been killed off though, just benched.

No news on Steel, Black Lightning or other Milestone characters, though DC did emphasise that with Mr. Terrific, Static, Blue Beetle, Bat Wing, Voodoo and the new Omac, they do have more titles with ethnic minority leads than ever before. And, yes, that is Katana in the new Birds of Prey.

Many of the new 52 books will have six issue story arcs, and Dan DiDio states that if sales are bad on a title, they won’t wait very long to cancel it. He wants strong sales across the line.

DiDio also mentioned maybe getting to a total of eighty titles published company wide, including kids comics and Vertigo.

He also wants comics to ship on time and even mentioned that he is very willing to replace a writer or an artist if they fall behind.

There seemed to be less agitation at the Dallas meeting than in LA. Well, you never know just who might be packing, I guess…

The next meeting on the DC Comics Retailer Roadshow is in Baltimore, next door to Diamond Comic Distributors, on Thursday. Let us know how it goes!